The House-Warming: A One-Act Farcical Depiction of Folk Life

Korhonen, Heikki, 1884-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.3

Word count: 18K words
Chapters: 2

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Talonkatsojaiset: Yksinäytöksinen pilansekainen kuvaus kansan elämästä by KorhonenAuthor: Korhonen, Heikki, 1884-,Language: Finnish, Class: PH: Language and Literatures: Finno-Ugrian and Basque languages and literatures, Release Date: Oct 19, 2015

Editor's review

This is a one-act Finnish farce whose subtitle indicates that it takes folk life as its subject and has a comic, satirical flavor. The work is short, with a concentrated setting, and its characters and conflicts revolve around everyday village life. It is useful for observing how early twentieth-century Finnish popular drama handled folk material and comic timing. As a public-domain ebook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to obtain and excerpt, making it suitable as reading-aloud material for theater enthusiasts and as a way for language learners to experience colloquial dialogue. When reading, first grasp how the conflict advances in a one-act play, then note the social observations behind the jokes; if using it for staging, pay attention to entrances and exits and the rhythm of dialogue. It is not a systematic work of folklore research, and readers should treat it as a literary text rather than a historical source.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Finnish drama and folk subjects
Theater enthusiasts who need a short play for reading aloud or staging
Learners of Finnish who want to encounter colloquial dialogue
Readers studying early twentieth-century Finnish popular literature

Not a good fit for

Readers unfamiliar with Finnish who have no translation to assist them
Readers expecting a long plot or complex character arcs
Academic readers seeking systematic folklore-theory analysis

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the one-act conflict, then go back and mark the jokes and turns.
Read the dialogue aloud and notice the colloquial rhythm and differences in characters' tones.
Consult background material on Finnish rural life to understand what the jokes refer to.
If using it for staging, first draw up an entrance-and-exit chart, then assign roles.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this book without knowing Finnish?

The original is in Finnish; without a translation to assist you, the barrier to reading is fairly high. You can use a dictionary and machine translation to get the gist of the plot first, then compare with the original to appreciate the tone of the dialogue; it is better suited as language-learning material than as casual reading.

What is the one-act play roughly about?

The subtitle indicates that it is a comic, satirical short play about folk life, with a concentrated setting and few characters, and its conflict revolves around everyday village life. For the specific plot, rely on the original text; it is advisable to read the character list and stage directions first, then move on to the dialogue.

Can it be used for theater staging?

It is short and has a concentrated setting, making it suitable for small-scale reading or classroom staging. When using it, note possible typesetting problems in public-domain texts, work out the entrances and exits and prop cues yourself, and make modest cuts or changes as needed to fit performance length.

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About the author

Korhonen, Heikki, 1884- Author · Finnish · 1884

Heikki Korhonen (born 1884; date of death unknown) was a Finnish author. His year of birth is documented, but little public information is available about the rest of his life or his literary career. The library holds only one work by him, Talonkatsojaiset: Yksinäytöksinen pilansekainen kuvaus kansan elämästä, a one-act play. Its title and subtitle indicate a humorous, farcical sketch of rural Finnish life, with characters drawn from ordinary people. Short and concentrated in setting, the play was suited to popular performance and continues the Finnish national literature's interest in country life. Korhonen appears to have specialized in folk comedy, yet owing to limited sources, the full extent of his output, his standing in literature, and his later influence cannot be reliably assessed.